


If you must Mourn, my Love

by TheFreedomSock (willneverbreakme)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide, but they're also sort of super nice, i swear i poured by fuckin heart into this shit, it's not very shippy but bear with it, it's platonically adorable, listen they're emotionally traumatised and i'm not going to let them be happy, they're kinda bitches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 17,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2827568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willneverbreakme/pseuds/TheFreedomSock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows what it was like for the Good Guys at Hogwarts during the year of the Dark Lord's reign, but what about for the "Bad Guys"? </p><p>Their friends are absent, their loved ones are dying, and the future isn't looking as bright as they were promised.<br/>The remaining Slytherins have to learn how to live in this new world, and cope with what happens when they can't. They're Slytherins, all they have is each other and their nightmares as they try to make it out of this alive</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. this year

Slytherin house wasn’t the same in their last year of school. In some ways it thrived, in others it stood desolate. 

They enjoyed their newfound freedom, their newfound favouritism that the other houses had enjoyed for years, headmaster’s propensity to turn a blind eye to the antics of Slytherin _finally,_ Gryffindor finally put in their place after so many years of being held above all of them.

“I don’t like this year.”  
“Yeah well tough shit Greengrass, this is how it is.” Drawled a girl with thick dark hair, sitting across her plush green armchair.  
“Shut up Parkinson. Since when have you missed a chance to complain?” The blonde snapped back from the sofa.   
Parkinson’s lips stretched slowly into a smirk as she looked up from her magazine. “True.”  
Greengrass rolled her eyes.  
Parkinson’s gaze dropped back to the magazine. “Go on then blondie, what don’t you like about this year? We’ve never had a better one and I include the reign of Umbridge in that.”  
“It’s too quiet.”  
Parkinson laughed. “Quiet? This is the loudest we’ve ever been.”  
“I don’t mean the house activities, I mean the people. We’re missing half the class Pansy.”

She looked up suddenly at the use of her first name, then paused. “Yeah I know.” Her voice was quiet, and more serious than it had been before. “I know Daphne.” There was a moment of silence between them, before Parkinson grinned, not letting herself dwell on it. “But, let’s not lie here, this year is the best. Not only are we seventh years finally, Slytherin house is finally, _finally_ on top, suck on that Gryffindorks.” She gloated.  
Greengrass cracked a smile, allowing herself to be cheered up for the moment. “Yeah I know right, I haven’t done my homework for Flitwick all year and he still hasn’t given me a detention.”  
Parkinson laughed, “Hasn’t dared. Sprout hasn’t either, it’s only McGonagall who does these days.”  
“And even she’s not as strict as before. Not with us.” Greengrass added with a smirk.  
“Damn right. See Greengrass, things aren't as bad as you make out they are.”  
“I still don’t like it.”  
“Of course you don’t like it! No one likes it! It’s war, you’re not meant to like it!” She forced a laugh. “And we’re still just kids, otherwise we’d be fighting and that’d be _much_ worse.” She grinned, as though her last statement had been meant to cheer the other girl up.  
“Yeah we are just kids, but so’s Theo.”  
Parkinson froze.  
“And so’s Draco.”  
“Shut up.” Her voice was cold, devoid of all humour.  
“You know it’s true.”  
“I said shut up. Not now Greengrass I’ve got enough to deal with.” Her tone was a warning, a flashing red light that said _back off_ , but the other girl either hadn’t noticed or had decided to ignore it.   
“We all do Pansy.” Greengrass continued stoically.  
“Not fucking now Greengrass I’m not doing this right now.” She could barely suppress the emotion, getting up from her seat to leave in an attempt to save face.  
“But they are.”  
“I said shut the fuck up!” She screamed, turning back around to face Daphne.

Parkinson breathed heavily as the rest of the common room stared at her. “What?” She snapped, and they all quickly returned to what they had been doing, pretending not to listen.  
“I’m sorry.” Said Greengrass quietly.  
“No you’re not.” Parkinson just sounded tired. “You knew what you were doing and you did that deliberately, don’t lie to me.” She sat back down in her chair, slumped a little now.  
“Sorry. I just, I feel so bad, relaxing and enjoying myself, when I know that they…”  
“I know Daphne.”  
“But we don’t know!" She burst out, "We don’t know what they’re doing, we don’t know where they are, we don’t even know if they’re still there, still alive.”  
“Don’t even go there Greengrass. Don’t even fucking think it okay, don’t you dare. They are all still out there, they are all alive and well and perfectly fine, and they’re all going to come back to us in one piece once they’ve _won,_ and made the world a better place for us, okay. Okay?”  
Greengrass nodded.  
“Damn right they are, alright?”  
She nodded again.  
“Good. Now let’s do this herbology essay, okay."

Together they pulled out their school books, ignoring the odd looks form a common room full of kids who hadn’t bothered to do their homework since classes began. They knew they were just clutching at the straws of normality, but it was better than nothing.

  

“I heard you ladies actually did your charms homework last night, caused quite the scandal.” Zabini slid onto the bench beside them, snagging a piece of toast off Greengrass’ plate and flashing her a winning smile as she glared at him half-heartedly. “And of course my dear Parkinson, yelled so loudly I could hear it from the dormitories.” He shot her a wink that managed to be mocking somehow and took a sip from her goblet of pumpkin juice.

“Save the cheap displays of dominance Zabini, we all know how much of a sub you are.”  
The second year beside her who had been pretending not to be eavesdropping suddenly choked on his toast and had to be beaten vigorously on the back by his friend. Parkinson laughed cruelly before continuing the conversation. “Besides, it was Herbology not charms.”  
“Well that’s much better.” He said sarcastically, deliberately keeping his eyes fixed on hers as he took another sip from her drink.  
She rolled her eyes and pushed the goblet towards him. “Keep it. I’m not interested in anything you’ve soiled Zabini.”  
He gave her his most charming smile (and he could be pretty damn charming when he wanted to be), though his eyes remained cold. She returned it with a frigid smirk.

“Well, now you’ve gone and ruined our cheerful morning…”  
“Ah it’s okay Greengrass, Parkinson knows I love her really, even if she does like to keep a stick up her arse.” He winked at her again and reached for another piece of Daphne’s toast, sighing melodramatically when she swatted his hand away and taking one from a serving plate instead.  
“Rude of you, Greengrass.”  
“Yes, whereas stealing someone else’s food is the height of good manners.”  
“Indeed.”

Their smiles didn’t touch their lips, but their eyes warmed, and the atmosphere relaxed.

“Where’s everyone else this morning?” Asked Greengrass after a pause.  
“Fuck if I know.” Replied Zabini.  
“Bullstrode’s in the library, Merlin knows why but she got up early. I think Crabbe and Goyle are supervising some morning detentions.” Supplied Parkinson.  
Zabini raised his eyebrows. “Well at least they’ll be in a good mood later.”  
Parkinson snorted.  
“And Moon and Davis?”  
She laughed this time, “Haven’t you noticed, they don’t get up until twelve anymore. Haven’t in about a month since they worked out they could get away with it, and I’m pretty sure they only get up at all because they know they can’t miss  Dark Arts or Muggle Studies.”  
Zabini’s eyebrows furrowed minutely, but Parkinson missed nothing. “What?”  
“Nothing.” He was quick to reply. “Anyone checked the paper yet?”

He knew that would change the topic quickly, and the mood swiftly sobered.

“Your turn Zabini.”  
“Fuck off Parkinson I did it yesterday.”  
“Like hell you did, open the paper.”  
She passed him an issue of the daily prophet, still rolled up, without looking at it.  
He rolled his eyes but said nothing, tugging the knot so that the paper unrolled on the table in front of him. “Nothing interesting on the front page.”  
The two girls allowed themselves a sigh of relief, though none of the three relaxed as Blaise flipped through the pages.

 

Page two.  
Page three.  
  
Deaths were usually on page eight.  
  
Page four.  
Page five.  
  
“Seriously, I’m sure I did this yesterday.”  
“Don’t be such a pussy Blaise.” Snapped Greengrass, trying not to chew her nails.  
  
Page six.  
Page seven.  
  
“It is definitely your turn Parkinson.”  
“Shut up and turn the damn page.”  
  
Page eight.  


Breath held, hands clutching the strong wood of the table hard enough to hurt, they waited, eyes scanning.

“No one we know.”  
They each let out breaths they had been powerless but to hold and relaxed.  
“No  wait I’m wrong.” Daphne choked suddenly, dropping her goblet with a clang.  
“Calm down woman it’s not them.”  
She smacked him over the head, “You fucking tosser, Merlin if you do that again I swear I will tear out each and every hair on your head with my bare hands.”  
“Oh shut up Greengrass, you don’t have the patience.” He said casually.  
She fixed her eyes with his and there was a glint of steel in them that he hadn’t seen before. “Watch me.” She hissed.  
Zabini raised his eyebrows a little, mentally reevaluating the girl. “Very well.”  
She narrowed her eyes at him a moment before turning back to her breakfast, apparently satisfied.

“Do you retards want to know who died or what?”  
They froze again.  
“No.”  
“Fine then Parkinson, I won’t tell you.” He tried for his usual arrogant tone, but fell a little short.   
She looked up at him and said quietly, “Just fucking tell us Blaise.”  
“It’s Flint. He’s dead.”

They all swallowed.   
Parkinson recovered first from the stillness that had descended. “Ah. Well.” She paused again. “When?”  
“Last night.” He checked the paper, “Routine mission gone wrong. Fell in defence of the innocent. That kind of thing.”

“We should tell the house.” Greengrass spoke, not making eye contact with any of them.  
“Yeah, yeah we should. He was our captain since before we got here.”  
“A damn good captain.”

Nobody spoke for the next ten minutes. They hardly even moved.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this at breakfast.” Suggested Parkinson abruptly.  
“Huh?” Zabini looked over.  
“Well I don’t know about you idiots but I’m going to be thinking about this for the rest of the day, and I would have appreciated some privacy, but we’re in the middle of the great hall and we’ve got lessons now. We should do this in the evenings, after dinner.”  
“You want to have the list of deaths,” Greengrass flinched as Zabini said the word, “Right here in your hand, and then you’ll be willing to put them down and ignore them for the rest of the day? You really think you’ll be able to just put it out of your mind?”  
“No, but if we do recognise any more names I’d prefer it if I did so in the common room than here.” There was a sudden edge to her voice, a hardness, and it was impossible not to realise that she was thinking about Draco, imagining how she’d react if she found out he’d died.   
Blaise’s tone softened. “All right, we’ll give it a try tomorrow. But you have to open it.”  
Pansy mock scowled at him but agreed, and he smirked in return.  
“Come on, if we got up this damn early we might as well go to lessons.”

  

When they returned to the common room after dinner that evening, Pansy decided that, as a prefect, it was her duty to inform the house. Or at least, Blaise and Daphne decided and she couldn’t fault their logic. She stepped up onto the coffee table in the middle of the room and clapped once, loudly enough that everyone could hear it above the sound of laughter and conversation, then waited for silence to fall.

“I don’t know how many of you read the papers this morning, but I think you should all know, that Marcus Flint has been killed.”   
There were gasps and downturned eyes from the fourth years and above, and expressions of semi-recognition on the faces of the younger years.  
“For those of you who didn’t know him, Flint was a bit of a dick. But he was _our_ dick, and he was our captain for four years, and in that time we won the cup twice, would’ve won it three times if quidditch hadn’t been cancelled, and won almost every damn game we played. Despite being a dick, Flint was a good captain, and he could be a good man when he wanted to be. He was a nice guy.”  
Zabini stepped up beside her and continued, “So let’s all raise our imaginary glasses, and pretentiously pretend to drink, to the memory of douche-bag we all mostly liked and respected. He was twenty two years old. To Marcus Flint.”   
And, as he had instructed, the house raised their hands like imaginary drinks glasses while they echoed the words, “To Marcus Flint.”

Blaise stepped down from the table and made a show of chivalrously extending his hand to help Pansy down, which she accepted with a small smirk. As the hush cleared and the sound of conversation floated out across the room again, they rejoined the rest of their group.

“Good speech Parkinson.” Bullstrode gave her an approving nod. “I think he would’ve liked it, it was his kind of humour.”  
“Nah, there weren’t enough dick jokes in it.” Interjected Crabbe.  
Goyle smiled. “Should’ve made more dick jokes Parkinson.”


	2. Parkinson smiling

“Hey Parkinson, did you hear?” A round faced girl with thick black square glasses and a white blonde bob bounded over excitedly and leaned over the back of the sofa Parkinson was sitting on.  
“Hear what, Moon?”  
“Those idiot Gryffindors your squad caught in fifth year, you know, the ones who started up again trying to fuck up the school…”  
“Yes Moon I know the ‘DA’” She said impatiently, as though there were air quotes around the last word.  
“They’ve gone and got themselves caught trying to steal the sword of Godric Gryffindor from Dum-Snape’s office!”

At that Pansy actually sat up and turned around to look at the other girl, eyebrows raised incredulously and a smile stretching itself across her face. “Are you serious?” She asked.   
Moon nodded. “Snape was _furious!_ ” She continued, sounding thrilled, “He’s given them _months_ of detention!”  
“Who was it? Who got caught?” She demanded, now definitely grinning.

“Why is Parkinson smiling?” Blaise demanded as he walked over, flopping down on the sofa next to Pansy and reclining against her shoulder. “I find it personally rude and completely unsettling, stop it at once.” 

Pansy tried and failed to shrug him off while Moon replied, “Longbottom, that crazy Lovegood girl and the Weasley girl have got themselves caught stealing a sword from Snape’s office!” Moon was even more thrilled now that her audience had expanded and she sounded delighted.  
Pansy cawed with delight, and Blaise sat suddenly upright, turning to stare at Moon with a laugh caught in his throat.   
“You are kidding!” Blaise exclaimed.  
Moon shook her head, still grinning.  
“What in Merlin’s name did they think they were going to do with a sword?” He asked, almost choking on his laughter.   
“Were they going to try and stab the Dark Lord with it?” Asked Pansy, incredulous but almost overjoyed at the news, “Or just Snape?” 

Blaise dissolved into laughter, attracting stares from the rest of the room but unable to give a single shit about the sudden attention.   
“Oh that is just _too much._ ” He said, as soon as he was capable of coherent speech. “They just crack me up, what did they even…? No, I can’t take it, I will actually die of laughter if you tell me any more.”

Still chuckling, he lay back down, this time resting his head in Pansy’s lap, much to her disgust, but she was in too good a mood to mind too much this time. Instead of forcibly kicking him off, she settled for running her fingers through his hair until he noticed that she was ruining the style he had jelled it into and stormed off to fix it, the vain prick.


	3. almost hated her

Pansy was of the opinion that doors were there for her to open, and for her to close, and that nobody had the right to try and stop her. So when she wanted to be alone, the door was sealed with surprising skill and when she wanted to enter she did so without caution or knocking. It was how she found things out. Secrets and lies and cheating boyfriends, little embarrassments and substantial blackmail, a poorly locked door and the world was her oyster. 

Blaise almost hated her for it. 

 

It was after dinner, pretty late but not late enough that Crabbe and Goyle were back from supervising detentions. With those two out and the other two gone, off fighting or doing whatever it was that teenaged death eaters did, Blaise was the only one in the room. 

He rarely got this kind of alone time, and he took full advantage of it. Stood in front of the mirror, eyeliner brush in hand, he perfected his makeup skills, working on his left eye. This one was harder than the right eye because he had to go across his nose to get to the corner and move the brush right to left instead of left to right, but in the end he was pleased with it. The line across his upper lid was remarkably straight and the wing looked great, though the lower line wasn’t quite right… Either way he was pleased with himself, it was remarkably good considering how little practice he had had, he was hardly ever alone for long enough to bother doing it.

“Hey Zabini, Greengrass won’t let me use her ink,” The door swung open, revealing Pansy holding an empty ink bottle, “Can I borrow your…” Blaise turned around instinctively to face her and she froze in the doorway.  
“Fuck! Get the fuck out Parkinson!” He yelled, grabbing his wand from the chest of drawers and throwing a hex at her.

Fortunately, Pansy didn’t need to be told twice, and the spell hit the door as it shut swiftly behind her.

“Fuck.” He cursed again, running to the bathroom to scrub it off. His hands shook as he turned the tap and he wasn’t sure if the tears down his cheek were from the force with which he was scrubbing or something else and FUCK.

He returned to the bedroom, suddenly realising that he had no idea what to do now. He stood by his bed, torn between going downstairs like nothing had happened and… He brought his hands up to his head and slid his fingers into his hair, suddenly balling his hands into fists and pulling so tight that it hurt. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…” He continued as he brought his elbows up to his face and shut his eyes and let his legs fold beneath him.

Breathing in and breathing out and breathing in again Blaise stayed like that, half sitting half lying in a ball on the floor by his bed, trying desperately to shield himself from the world and his thoughts, trying not to think about what would happen if Pansy told everyone, about how she’d smirk and tell him that she _owned_ him now, about what she’d think of him now, until he managed to pull himself together. 

He got up from the floor, trying to control his shaking and adopting a dignified, regal pose that suggested that nobody fuck with him today. He splashed some cold water on his face until it looked less blotchy, less like he’d been crying, and picked up a book from his bedside table. 

He would be strong, he would be proud, just like his mother had taught him, he would act like nothing was wrong.

He went down to the common room, spotting Pansy and Daphne sitting at one of the work tables and carefully ignoring them, opting instead for one of the armchairs on the other side of the room. He let out a shaky breath as he opened his book. It was fine. No one had even looked up as he came down, Pansy hadn’t said anything. 

It was a few minutes later that Blaise allowed himself to begin to relax. It was fine, it was alright, it was okay. He was now actually reading his book rather than just staring down at the pages in silent relief as he attempted to calm his thoughts, and it was really rather good. So good in fact that he didn’t notice Pansy coming over to him until she sat down in the armchair next to his.

Blaise tensed almost imperceptibly, suddenly very aware of his breathing, but otherwise acted as though he hadn’t noticed her and continued to read. She let him, reaching into her bag and pulling out a book of her own. They sat there for some time, not quite together, but next to each other, reading quietly. 

Then, without looking up, Pansy quietly broke the silence between them. “Just so you know Blaise,” She began quietly, “I thought you looked pretty hot. You’ve got a steady hand, it looked good. I could help you out with the lower lid though, if you wanted.”

Blaise made no immediate reply, acting as though he hadn’t heard her. It took him quite a few minutes to compose himself to the extent that he was sure his voice wouldn’t shake before he answered her.   
“Thanks.” He murmured simply.   
She nodded, and both continued to read until long after the younger years had gone to bed. 


	4. until their throats bleed.

There was a tremendously loud **_BANG_** and a large puff of violently violet smoke, a puff which quickly spread to fill the entire corridor. Screaming instantly ensued, as well as a lot of students quickly covering their mouths with their jumpers in case the smoke turned out to have unpleasant effects, followed by immediate hurried evacuation of the corridor. They all remembered the period of pranks after the Weasley twins had left…

It became quickly apparent that the smoke was probably not harmful however, and was in fact just, well, a smokescreen. Before it had cleared, leaflets began to fall from the ceiling. Dozens and dozens of little purple leaflets.

From their safe distance from the smoke, Pansy, Blaise, and Millicent observed the bizarre rain. Each leaflet sat there for only a few seconds before vanishing, presumably to fall from the ceiling again. As soon as the corridor was clear of violet vapour, there was a sudden rush towards the leaflets, dozens of curious students rushed to pick them up or pluck them from the air to find out what they were and what was going on.

Pansy, Blaise and Millicent joined the gathering crowd, the two former desperate to make sure they didn’t miss out on whatever this interesting new gossip was and the latter merely curious.

“Let’s get out of here.”   
“What, why? Don’t be such a spoilsport Millicent, this is the most interesting thing to happen all month!” Exclaimed Blaise, trying to catch one as it fell.  
“We need to go, Parkinson put it down, Zabini leave it, we’re going.”   
Millicent’s tone was so serious that the obeyed immediately, they knew that tone of voice and it had yet to mean good things. So far it had only meant death. They all but fled the corridor and did not stop walking until they were safely ensconced in their common room again, where the two turned to Millicent.

“What the hell was that Bulstrode?” Asked Zabini.  
“Those leaflets, they were from Dumbledore’s army. They were about how to rebel. My guess is that Crabbe and Goyle won’t be back til late tonight, anyone found in possession of one is going to be in detention until their throats bleed.”   
Pansy and Blaise swallowed.  
“Thanks Millicent.” Said Pansy quietly, eyes turned slightly to the side.


	5. the sound

The week that came after the Incident with the smoke and the leaflets (which, despite Snape and the Carrows’ best efforts continued to rain all day) brought bag checks to rival those in the time of Umbridge. Those students who usually ‘helped out’ with detentions were permitted to randomly search the bag of anyone, any time they saw fit. Discovery with an illicit leaflet was punishable by three months of detention.

“Bag search! Hand it over Peakes.”   
“But I’ve just had it searched!”   
“ **Now** Peakes.”  
 “That bloke round the corner there literally just checked…” Peakes’ voice broke off and was replaced with the sound of screaming. The other students moved on, pretending not to notice. None of them wanted to be noticed.

Some Gryffindors were checked five times in one day. No Slytherins were searched in the entire week. Green and Silver ties became valuable currency, and remained so even after the searches were over. To the average Carrow supporter, a cursory glance at the colour of a student’s tie was enough to decide whether or not they were safe.


	6. of us

“What the hell is even in those leaflets? Why do they piss the Carrows off so much?” Blaise asked, seemingly rhetorically, after the fifth day of bag searches.  
“We found a Gryffindor kid with a whole bunch of them yesterday.” Said Crabbe, jerking his thumb towards Goyle, who nodded in confirmation. “We read them.”

Pansy and Blaise raised identical eyebrows.

“You read them? You’re the ones doling out crucios to anyone who’s got one and you two read them?” Asked Daphne, a little incredulous.  
“We’re doing the crucios, who’s gonna do us?” Asked Goyle with a small smile.  
“Fair enough.” Replied Blaise, shrugging.  
“Anyway,” Crabbe sounded a little irritated at the interruption, “We read them, and they had all kinds’a bad stuff in them. They were encouraging people to rebel against the system, and to speak out against Snape and the Dark Lord, and it gave spells so you could do stuff without the teachers seeing, and there was even a fake crucio.”   
“Sorry what? How do you fake a crucio?” Asked Pansy.  
 “We tested it on a Hufflepuff,” Said Goyle, “Made him scream and scream, but ‘e said it didn’t hurt.”  
“ _Anyway_ ,” continued Crabbe, “They’ve got all kinds’a stuff the Carrows don’t want the fuckin’ Gryffindors picking up. If everyone started doing it they’d be screwed for sure. But people won’t do it, they’re too scared.”  
“Scared of us.” Added Goyle softly.


	7. lost something

“Tracy!” Blaise Zabini swung himself into the chair opposite where Tracy Davis was working with a shit-eating grin, leaning enthusiastically forward into her personal space. “Merlin it’s been far too long! Have you noticed how we never talk anymore Tracy? Ever since Theodore left we’ve hardly exchanged a word!”  
 “What do you want Zabini?” Tracy asked tiredly, not looking up from her work.   
“What do you mean what do I want? Why do you always have to accuse me of having some kind of ulterior motive? Isn’t it possible that I simply want to speak to my friend?”  
 “I’m not doing your homework for you.”   
“I mean, I don’t even know what you did over the summer,” Continued Blaise as though she hadn’t spoken, “How was it? how is your family? how are you Tracy?”   
“My summer was fine, my sister’s still underage, you still can’t touch my brothers, and I’m not doing your homework Zabini.”   
“There you go again with your accusations, jeez you accidentally kiss a girl’s sibling one time and she never lets you forget it.”  
 “You kissed all of them Zabini, multiple times,” Tracy reminded him with an edge of irritation, “and I’m still not going to do your homework now will you please leave me alone.”  
“Well I wasn’t asking you to do my homework, but since you offered…”   
“Get out.”   
“But it’s so boring here now Tracy.” Blaise almost pouted at her.   
Tracy was unmoved. “Get out, or I’ll hex you.” 

Blaise considered her for a moment. “I know about as many hexes as you, I could probably block it.”   
“Nott left me a couple of his at the end of last year, for some reason he seemed to think I might need help defending myself against annoying imbeciles who might try to copy my homework. But I’m sure I won’t need help, right Zabini?” She gave him a pointedly fake smile.  
“Of course not Tracy, not when you’ve got me to help you.”Blaise replied gallantly with his most charming grin. 

Davis gave up all attempt or pretence at persuasion or subtlety. “Blaise get of my sight right now or I swear on Merlin’s sparkly purple hat I will use every single hex on Theo’s list against you.”   
“Well I’m off!” Blaise announced immediately, though making sure his tone was casual and spontaneous rather than deeply concerned and slightly scared, hurriedly standing up and smiling at her with his favourite icy smile.  
Davis breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, then suddenly startled up again as Blaise reappeared.   
“Just so you know Davis, I really do think it’s been too long.”

  
He left behind him a very confused Tracy Davis and a bittersweet sensation of gladness of her eventual victory and the strange, sad feeling that she had just lost something very special, though she had no idea what it was.


	8. all that matters

He didn’t know what it was, about Theodore Nott. 

He’d always been gay, there was no escaping that. Gay was gay, whether you met the ‘right person’ or not. It wasn’t like Theo had ‘turned him’. Except that he kinda had. 

Zabini didn’t know what it was, about Theodore. 

Why at the age of eleven the vain and outgoing Zabini boy, the new money, beautiful son of the beautiful young actress, had attached himself to the stiff upper arm of the stiff, bookish son of the pure and radical Nott, old money, old name, old blood.

Blaise didn’t know what it was, about Theo.

Why this boring, bookish, intellectual, introvert had somehow become so important to him. They clashed in every single way. Where Blaise was loud, Theo was quiet. Where Blaise was lazy, Theo was diligent. Where Blaise was gay, Theo was straight. 

But Blaise hadn’t known that. Not for a while. 

It wasn’t like Theo had turned him gay, Blaise knew how gay worked, you were or you weren’t and there was nothing that could change that. Blaise would have been gay with or without Theo. But, but that didn’t change the fact that it was Theodore Nott who Blaise first fell for.

You don’t need the elaboration. You don’t need to to be told how Blaise felt, how Blaise thought, how Blaise wanted, you know how this works.

All that matters is that Blaise Zabini was gay, and Theodore Nott was straight, and Daphne Greengrass was straight. And pretty. And Daphne Greengrass didn’t read a lot either and she preferred the grounds to the library and she preferred speech to silence and she was just like Blaise and not at all like Theodore but Theo kissed her anyway. Which hurt. 

It hurt like one of Theo’s much loved curses only with no hope of blocking it. But nobody really had any chance of blocking one of Theo’s curses anyway.

But it was okay. Blaise could take deep breaths and breathe because it was okay. Theodore Nott was happy (as much as Theodore Nott could be ‘happy’) and healthy (as much as that vitamin D deprived weed could be ‘healthy’) and here. He was Blaise’s friend and that was all he could ever really hope for (more than he could hope for).

And then it wasn’t okay.


	9. today

“Your turn today Daphne.” Pansy held out the rolled up paper to the other girl for her to open.   
“No way Parkinson, I did it yesterday.”   
“No you didn’t Greengrass,” Lied Parkinson easily, “Just shut up and open the damn paper.”  
 “It is definitely your turn.” Argued Greengrass, “Blaise, isn’t it her turn?”  
 Blaise opened his mouth to agree, then quickly backtracked when he caught Pansy’s eye. He shrugged. “Just get on with it Greengrass.”  
Greengrass glared at them, but knew that with the two of them both against her she might as well just get it over with.

Trying not to let her fingers shake, she took the proffered paper and cut the string tying it into a roll and looked at the front page.  “Nope.”   
“Thank god.” Sighed Pansy, pretending to relax and trying to act like she wasn’t waiting with baited breath for Daphne to get to page eight.  
Daphne turned the pages quickly, flicking through and barely even looking at them, just wanting it to be over with. She could feel it, she could feel it today, feel it in the air, in the ink on the pages. Today, it was going to be today, it was going to be today, she was going to get to page eight and see it, she was going to see it today. His name. It was going to be today, she could feel it. Finally she reached page eight, the deaths page. She scanned it carefully, her eyes kept trying to leap ahead to the end but she fought back, reading every single name on the list, until…  
“Nothing.”  
Despite her feigned nonchalance before, Pansy’s posture visibly relaxed. “Thank Merlin for that.”  
Daphne gave a shaky little laugh and sank down onto the sofa next to Pansy, leaving the paper to Blaise. Once someone else had checked the column through to make sure there were no former seventh year Hogwarts students on it, Blaise often liked to look over it. Perhaps liked is the wrong word, but he did it anyway.  
He reached the bottom without incident, then froze.

“Ah, Daphne dear?”   
“What is it Blaise?” Daphne didn’t even open her eyes to look at him.  
“…You missed the PTO.” “What?” “At the bottom of the column, it says PTO.” “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”  
Blaise paused. “It means please turn over.”  
Daphne suddenly sat bolt upright. “What?” Her voice was quiet, and almost a little dangerous.  
“The list continues onto the other page Daphne.” He replied carefully, holding out the paper to her.  
She swallowed, trying not to let her eyes widen with fear.  
Hand shaking, fingers trembling, she took the paper onto her lap, and turned the page.

Daphne did not move. She barely even seemed to breathe.  
Time slowed. The moment stretched on forever.  
The two of them stared at Daphne.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she looked up at them, but she didn’t seem to see them.  
“It’s today.” Her voice was quiet and high pitched and simultaneously filled with emotion and utterly dead. “It’s Theodore. He’s here.”  
Pansy seemed to deflate. Blaise crumpled. Daphne looked on the verge of cleaving in to.

Millicent Bullstrode interrupted.  
“Give me that.” She snatched the paper from Daphne’s hands, shoving it into her bag. “You two.” She snapped her fingers in Blaise and Pansy’s faces and the stared up at her, shocked and startled. “We’re going to the boy’s dormitories and I don’t want to hear so much as a sneeze from a single one of you until we get there, am I understood?”  
All three of them nodded, the combined shock of Theodore’s death and Millicent’s sudden arrival too much to process right now, and Pansy and Blaise moved to Daphne’s either side to support her as they followed Millicent up to the boy’s dorms. As soon as they were in Millicent shut the door and they slumped against the wall, sinking together to the floor.  
Pansy made to stand up, then seemed to give up halfway through and stayed where she was.

Of the three of them she was the most composed. Daphne’s eyes were already filling with tears and Blaise was staring directly ahead looking as blank and as unseeing as if he’d just been Kissed.  
Pansy cleared her throat. “What, what are we doing here? Why have you taken us to the boy’s dormitory?”  
Millicent was still standing in front of them, torn looking at them and looking away so that they wouldn’t lose face. “Would you rather be interrupted by Crabbe and Goyle or Moon and Davis? Who do you think would get the fuck out fastest if they came in?” Pansy nodded, feeling almost completely numb. “Yes, that’s good. Good thinking Millicent.”

In any other circumstance, Millicent would have smiled. That had to be the first compliment Pansy had ever given her, never mind the fact that she had called her by her first name.

“Ah, how did you… did you know?”  
 “You’re not the only ones around here who read the paper.” Millicent said simply. She sat down.  
“Ah, I see.” Pansy replied, in a tone so vacant and distant that it didn’t seem like she understood at all. “So you’ve known since this morning then.”   
“Yes.”  
 “And why didn’t you tell us then?”   
“You think that would have made it better?”  
 For the first time, Pansy’s eyes actually managed to focus on her.  
“You’re probably right.” She said softly.

Whether Pansy would have said more, Millicent never found out, because it was at that point that Daphne lost her grip and an ink pot on a nearby dresser exploded. Though in hindsight Pansy supposed that was more likely to have been Blaise.  
Tears began to stream down Daphne’s face, a dam seemingly broken behind her pretty face.  
“Give me the paper Bullstrode.” Daphne’s voice was shaking again, though this time with anger rather than fear. Millicent pulled it out and smoothed out some of the worst creases before handing it over. Daphne didn’t even flinch as she read the list again, found his name again, and read the account that came with it. Her usually pretty face twisted into a snarl of disgust.  
“Fell in the natural course of his duty?” She quoted disgustedly, “What the does that mean? What the fuck does that even mean?” Her voice was rising slowly, she’d be on the verge of shouting soon.  
It was at this point that Blaise seemed to wake up from his reverie. “Well let’s see.” His voice was cold, almost sarcastic. “If he’d died breaking up a riot it would have said restoring the peace. If he’d died killing mudbloods and scum it would have said cleansing the world of those who would seek to harm us. If he’d died protecting something it would have said sacrificing his life for his cause. The natural course of being a death eater involves the risk that at some point the Dark Lord might flip out and kill you for no reason or because he’s just damn pissed, so I’d say that’s what it means. He was killed because You-know-fucking-who damn well felt like it Daph.” Both Pansy and Millicent winced. They knew what that meant, that tone of voice, that disrespect, that far too accurate analysis. That meant that Blaise was giving up on life as they knew it and Daphne was going to hit the fucking roof.

Sure enough, her eyes flashed green and her mouth began to snarl again, tears still running down her face. “So that’s it is it? He wasn’t killed making the world a better place for us, he wasn’t killed doing something he believed in, he wasn’t even killed doing something his father made him do that he had no other choice but to do, he was killed on a ridiculous fucking whim for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” There was utter silence in the room other than the sound of Daphne’s rage filled monotone, and when she paused to suck in a breath the whole room held still. "I hate the Dark Lord you know, I hate him.” 

There was a moment of dumbstruck consternation, where all three of them stared at her incredulously, until Pansy slapped her around the face.  
“Shut up Daphne. Shut your damn face and don’t you dare, don’t you **dare** say that, don’t you ever, _ever_ let me or anyone else hear you say that ever again, understood?” Pansy was furious, glaring at Daphne with pure venom in her eyes. Daphne paled. She nodded. She seemed to break. The fight went out of her, and she collapsed back against the wall. There was the almost audible sound of something breaking inside her.  
Pansy sniffed once, angrily wiping away the single tear that dared to trail down her face, before nodding angrily. She seemed more herself again.

“Right.” Pansy stood up. “Bullstrode’s right, we’re not the only ones who get the paper in this house, or the other houses for that matter. And we’re certainly not the only ones with our eye on the death columns. Others will know about this, they will know that Nott was our friend, they will be looking at us, and I don’t know about you but they can go fuck themselves if they think I’m going to show it.”  
After her little speech Pansy looked very much like she wanted to leave, but one look at Daphne told her that wasn't going to happen. At least she had achieved something with it though. Blaise nodded once, and visibly pulled himself together. There would be no more outbursts from him, no more impropriety.

The same could not be said for Daphne.  
Crabbe and Goyle never did get to sleep in their own room that night.


	10. it didn't last

Every time she seemed to be getting better, to be making progress, they would step out into the corridors again and it would start. The whispering. The muttering. The shoving.

_Not so funny when it happens to you huh Greengrass?  
_ _Now you know how the rest of us feel you slimy sack of shit.  
_ _This should fucking teach you Greengrass  
_ _Not so high and mighty anymore are you?_

And then it would start all over again. The crying. The clinging. The screaming. The denial. The violence.

But then it stopped. Suddenly it just stopped. She stopped screaming and crying, she stopped lashing out at the slightest provocation, she stopped looking so lost and desperate, she stopped not eating and looking like she had fallen into despair. She looked like she could be happy again. She looked like she had found hope.

It didn’t last. 


	11. alive

It was five o'clock, it was raining, and the Slytherin common room was alive with the sound of silence. Then screaming. Then there was silence again. Then footsteps. Then total silence, as Tracy Davis stood in the door to the girls dormitories with blood on her hands and blood on her knees and far too much in her glassy eyes.  
"Somebody get help."

It was a full fifteen minutes before Madame Pomfrey arrived, but although there were mutterings that she would've been faster if it had been a Gryffindor, nobody minded too much because she was twenty minutes too late.

It was a quarter past five, the rain had stopped, and Daphne Greengrass was pronounced dead at the scene.


	12. wonderland

“Blaise what the fuck?” Millicent had come down from the dormitories as a loud crash had woken her from her bed.  
 “I think, Millicent, I think I might be drunk.” Blaise’s speech was slurred slightly, and he swayed a little as he stood up. “But don’t tell Pansy.”   
Millicent rolled her eyes, pushing Blaise back down onto the sofa, noticing Pansy curled up beside him. After checking that Pansy was just asleep and otherwise okay, Millicent set about taking Blaise up to bed.  
“Where the fuck did you even get all that fucking alcohol you heavy bastard?” Muttered Millicent, kicking bottles out of the way as she pulled Blaise back to his feet and wrapped his arm around her neck.

“Do you ever hate them Millicent? Do you ever just hate them?” Blaise asked suddenly, very seriously and with no small amount of venom in his voice, venom and anger.   
“What do you mean Blaise?” Millcent looked at him, eyebrows raised in more than slight concern.   
“Them, Millicent. They killed Daphne the bastards, they killed her.”  
 Millicent sighed. “Daphne killed herself Blaise, you know that.”  
 “Yeah, the knife may have been in her hand, but it was them who killed her Millie. Their fucking whispering the fucking bastards with their red and blue and their fucking yellow. I’ll kill ‘em.”   
“Sure you will Blaise.” Said Millicent quietly, suddenly sombre.  
“Not their fault though. Fuck them, I’ll fucking kill them, but it’s not their fault. It’s His fault. He killed Theo, Millie. He killed us.”  
 “What are you talking about Zabini.” Millicent didn’t really ask, trying not to think about it as she half dragged the drunk boy up the stairs.    
“Mister V dude.”  He said cryptically, or as cryptically as he could sound while attempting to remain coherent.  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”   
“Pansy knows it, good ol’ Pans…she gets me you know. You get me too Mill, even if you wanna pretend like you don’t. You get me Millie. There is no Wonderland.”   
Millicent sighed again. Tired. Worn.  
“Yes Blaise, I get you.” She whispered. “Now get into bed and go the fuck to sleep.”  
Blaise detached himself from Millicent, who he had been leaning on, and gave a messy, mocking salute. “Sir yes sir.”  He tripped his way over to his bed and collapsed on it, face down.

Another time Millcent might have laughed. As it was she just went down to the common room, carrying Pansy back to her bed and trying not to think about right and wrong, trying to think about self-preservation, about choosing the winning side and liking it. 

The world had always seemed a strangely dark place to the Slytherins. Now it was just dark. They could see it now, Daphne’s death had given them that much, they could see it now, the promised Utopia. In the distance, behind the clouds, above the sky above the angels. And no matter how hard they tried there was no dragging it down towards themselves. Blood only made them sink further away. This was not the way to their promised lands, if they were even there at all.

So some days they would look the other way when they saw DA members breaking the rules and some days they would punish them for things they hadn’t done. Swings and roundabouts. It balanced out eventually.


	13. into step

“Pansy, why are you hanging around outside the boy’s bathrooms?” Asked Moon, pausing in the corridor beside the girl.  
“Because I’m a perverted fuck who get off on this kind of thing.”  
“What?” She gasped.  
“Cos Zabini’s taking a piss you idiot why do you think I’m out here?” She scowled at the blonde girl, rolling her eyes.  
“I, I dunno Pansy, it’s just a bit…”  
“A bit?” Pansy demanded, her eyes narrowing. “A bit what, exactly?”  
Moon looked a little sheepish and a little more afraid. “Well, it’s a bit odd isn’t it? Do you just follow him around or…?”  
Fortunately for Moon, it was at this point that Blaise emerged from the bathroom, and Pansy chose to leave before Moon could finish her sentence, linking her arm through his as they fell into step and completely ignoring the other girl.


	14. inseparable

“So do you think they’ve got some sort of polyamory thing going on, or-?”   
“What the fuck did you just say Moon?”

 Moon sighed at Crabbe, disappointed that her audience had evidently not been paying attention for the last five minutes.   
“Parkinson, Zabini and Bullstrode, when was the last time you saw them apart?”   
“You think they’re fucking?” Asked Crabbe, in mild horror.   
  
“What did you say Vince?” Goyle looked up suddenly, shocked into attention.   
“Moon thinks those three,” Crabbe gestured towards them on the sofa, “Are fucking.”   
Goyle shook his head.  
“You’re crazy, Moon. No way.”  
 “Am I though?” Asked Moon, practically bouncing on her seat.  
 “Yes.” Replied Crabbe bluntly.  
“Seriously though, think about it. When was the last time you saw them apart? They were hardly even friends last year but now…”   
“Bullstrode goes off on her own sometimes.” Said Goyle slowly.   
“And the other two?” Moon was actually bouncing now with excitement over her theory.  
There was a pause, as the two boys tried to remember the last time they had seen either Zabini or Parkinson alone.  
“I saw Zabini on his own in the corridor the other day.” Suggested Goyle.   
“Nah, he was outside the bathroom cos Parkinson and Bullstrode were in there, doesn’t count.” Crabbe corrected him.  
 “Oh yeah.”

 “Errm…  "  
“There was, there was last weekend when, wait no.”  
 “Errm…”

“See! They’re practically inseparable!” Cried Moon delightedly.  
 “Okay yeah, they’re inseparable.” Agreed Crabbe, and Moon squirmed with delight. “But that doesn’t mean they’re fucking.”   
Moon pouted at him, disappointed.  
“They always go up to bed late, but separately. Besides, Zabini still sleeps in our room, and Parkinson’s not there.”  
Moon pouted again, and sighed dramatically. “Whatever. I still think they’re fucking.”


	15. ties

“Millicent why the fuck do you need to carry five spare ties around with you?” Pansy asked as they spilled out onto the floor.  
Millicent ignored her and quickly shoved them back in her pocket along with her tissue.  
“I mean, one’s fair enough I guess, in case you spill something or whatever, two’s extreme, but five is just absurd. Do you think they’re going to wander off or something?”   
“Shut up Parkinson.”  
Rebuked by the sudden use of her last name, Pansy let the topic drop, but it took every ounce of her self restraint not to comment when there were only two left at the end of the day.


	16. douchemobile

“I really can’t be bothered with transfiguration anymore, do you think I could be an actor?”  
“Hmm.” Pansy hummed noncommittally, which Blaise seemed to take as an agreement. Millicent didn’t even bother looking up from her book.  
“I mean I’m obviously handsome enough, but I’ve never actually taken acting classes. Though I suppose seeing as how mother’s so good I could just be naturally talented.”  
“Hmm.” Pansy hummed again, and Blaise continued.  
“But, would it just seem like I was trying to cash in on my mother’s success rather than making it on my own? It is important to be seen to be independent.”  
“Hmm.”  
“Then again I suppose, do I really care? Whatever I do people are probably going to link my success to my mother somehow, but this way I could talk about her inspiring me or some shit, don’t you think?”  
“Hmm.”

It was at this point that Blaise realised his audience was not being particularly attentive. “Do you think you need a transfiguration NEWT to become a giant fire-breathing salami? I mean, it might not have the best job prospects but just setting fire to people’s kitchen cupboards could be fun right?”  
“Hmm.”  
Blaise sighed. “My dear Parkinson this is _most_ rude of you.” He sighed again, then got up and sat down in Pansy’s lap.

“Oh bloody hell Zabini what the fuck was that for!?” Exclaimed Pansy, suddenly very much paying attention to him.  
“You were being rude.” He sniffed haughtily.  
Pansy rolled her eyes and attempted to shove him off. “Holy shit, what are you made of, bricks? You weigh a fucking tonne, get off me!”  
“Well that was even ruder. You’re not very comfortable you know Parkinson.”  
“No shit you dickbag of doxies, you’re sitting on my hands!”  
“Ooohhh.” Blaise shifted just enough that Pansy could free her crushed hands then leaned back against her, smirking. “Ah, much more comfortable.”  
Pansy gave him the finger then went back to examining her painfully crushed hands.

“What were your hands doing in the way anyway?”  
“I was reading something.”  
Blaise shifted around uncomfortably on her lap. “It doesn’t feel like I’m sitting on a book.”  
“It was a leaflet you douchemobile. Get off me.”

Blaise stuck his tongue out and finally went to sit somewhere else, though not without noticing how quickly Pansy moved to hide the leaflet before he could see it. 

There were only so many leaflets distributed around Hogwarts these days.


	17. shocking

 

“That’s it Crabbe, _lovely_ stuff. Moon, you’re not trying hard enough, you have to _mean_ it girl. Goldstein, are you even trying? _Move!_ Now _this_ is how you do it boy.” Alecto Carrow raised her wand. “ _Crucio!_ ” She screeched. The child sobbing on the floor screamed, body contorting off the floor, tears rolling down his cheeks as he screamed in ear-piercing agony.

“Now you Goldstein.”  
The unfortunate Ravenclaw bit his lip. He paused.  
“Do it boy!”  
He tried again, “Cr-cr..”  
“ _Crucio!_ ”  
He hadn’t been fast enough. Alecto Carrow turned her wand on him and he fell to the floor, his legs giving way as he screamed and convulsed. The other child swallowed guiltily, grateful for the respite.

When she was done, Anthony Goldstein got shakily to his feet. They all knew that you couldn’t just lie there, it was practically an invitation…

“Now try again boy, and remember, you’ve got to _mean it._ ”  
Goldstein visibly pulled himself together. He pointed a shaking wand at the child, who was sobbing again, he knew what was to come. “Crucio!” He yelled, far more strongly this time.   
Professor Carrow grinned, clapping him firmly, almost proudly on the shoulder as the child on the floor contorted and shrieked. “Well done Goldstein. Well done.” 

The rest of the class turned away as tears streamed down Anthony Goldstein’s face. He didn’t lower his wand though, and in the end, that was all that mattered.

“Good Zabini, but I’m not sure if you really _feel_ it.” She came over to where Blaise was non-verbally torturing another child who was screaming, rigid and immobile on the floor, and put an almost parental arm around his shoulders. “I know what it’s like, us Slytherins, we rarely let ourselves really _feel_ things do we Blaise? But we don’t have to do that anymore, we can let it all out, we can express ourselves Zabini, we can let ourselves really feel it, really show it, hmm?”  
Blaise nodded, seemingly concentrating too hard to talk.  
“So give it a go my boy. Remember what this _thing_ is, think of what it is, what it’s done to us all, doesn’t it make you angry? Doesn’t it deserve to suffer, like it’s made us suffer? Doesn’t it make you want to do something? Don’t you want to make it scream? Don’t you want to make it writhe and beg? Don’t you want to make it _squirm_?”  
Blaise raised his wand again. “Crucio.” He said coldly, forcefully.  
This time the child not only screamed, she broke. She screamed until her throat bled, she twitched and writhed and spasmed on the floor, back arching, limbs contorting, all the while begging him to stop, just, _stop_. Blaise watched impassively, his face did not so much as twitch, his hand did not so much as quiver. To all the world he appeared merely bored.

 

“Watch where you’re fucking going you blood traitor piece of shit!” Blaise cursed, shoving Longbottom away after their shoulders knocked in the corridor. Longbottom made no move to apologise, but nor did he behave insolently. He knew how far he could push his boundaries and he already had a couple of bones he had a horrible feeling were fractured from the last time he had spoken out in the corridor. 

“We all know you’re heading that ridiculous fucking club with the fucking leaflets.” Blaise hissed, suddenly close enough to the other boy that Longbottom almost fucking punched him and and damn the consequences and his injuries, but Blaise continued, shoving Longbottom away and cursing at him, “Your spell work is fucking shocking, you better fucking improve it or it won’t just be you who suffers.” He raised his wand, as if in threat, before sweeping off down the corridor.

No one really paid any attention to the outburst, it was a pretty much normal interaction between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin these days. It only seemed odd to those who stopped to realise that Blaise had just been in Dark Arts whereas Longbottom’s lesson had been Charms.

Blaise’s mood was foul all day after that, and he seemed far more prone to violent outbursts than usual that evening. He generally preferred subtlety and laughter to anger and violence. Pansy would have ripped the feathers from her own owl before voicing her thoughts as to he was behaving like this.

 

By the end of the week there was another large puff of purple smoke and the Transfiguration corridor rained new DA leaflets all afternoon.


	18. gently

“Zabini what the fuck are you doing here?” Pansy’s voice was flat and almost bored. It was half past six in the morning, she was tired and had long since passed the point where anything Blaise did surprised her.  
“Can I borrow your makeup?” Blaise’s voice had an edge to it, one of tension and barely concealed anxiety. He was looking at her like he would curse her to a crisp if she dared suggest this was something out of the ordinary, but also, not that either of them would ever admit it, kind of like he needed a friend.  
Pansy mentally shrugged and let him in. “What do you need?”   
“Foundation.”   
Pansy looked at him, trying not to appear too curious. “I don’t have anything for your skin tone, you’re too dark, this stuff is practically porcelain.”  
Blaise swallowed, and if Pansy hadn’t known better she’d have said he looked like he was going to cry.

“Do you have any spells for that then?” His voice was remarkably level, but sounded too formal for her to believe it was normal.  
“It’s too early for any games or shit Zabini, if you’re trying to cover up a spot or something…”  
 “To hide dark circles,” He burst out suddenly, “Do you have anything to hide dark circles?”  
Pansy paused, attitude shifting suddenly. Her voice lost its irritated edge, and she tried for a small smile. “Sure Blaise, give me a sec. Sit.” She gestured to her bed and went to get her wand from her bedside table.

“Here.” She put one hand on his head firmly to hold it in place while she gently traced her wand over the deep purple circles under his eyes, blending them carefully into his natural skin tone until they had almost completely disappeared. “There you go, all done.” She smiled again, and Blaise returned it weakly.  
“Thanks Pansy.” He got up and left, but halfway out the door he paused. “Ah, Parkinson? How long does this… if I were to come back tomorrow…?”   
“It should last til after dinner, come back tomorrow morning and I’ll do it again. But for Salazar’s sake come at a more reasonable hour.”  
He offered her a poor attempt at his usual smirk. “Thanks Pansy.”


	19. shaking

The paper sat between them on the table, staring up at them. Neither of them were able to meet its gaze, or each others.

“Come on Zabini this is ridiculous. It is stupid to be scared of a couple of sheets of paper.”  
“I completely agree with you Parkinson. Since it’s so stupid, you shouldn’t have a problem with opening it, right?”  
Pansy glared at him. “Oh shut up Blaise you know that’s not what I meant.”  
“No, you meant that I should open it instead of you, right Pansy.”  
She paused. “Well, yeah.”  
Blaise sighed loudly, rolling his eyes melodramatically at her and handing her the paper. “Just open it.”  
Pansy pouted at him, but cut the string and let the paper unroll in her lap. “Nothing interesting on the cover.” She reported.

She raised a hand, reaching for the corner to turn the page, and noticed that her hand was shaking. She bit her lip, hoping in vane that Blaise wouldn’t notice, or at least wouldn’t comment on it, when Millicent sat down beside her. Or rather, Millicent’s bulk collapsed beside her, along with a loud **_thunk_ ** noise as she dropped her bag too. She pulled out a book and began to read, without so much as acknowledging her companions.

 Pansy steeled herself again to turn the page, and suddenly froze as she felt Millicent’s hand slide over hers on the sofa beside her. She turned to look at the other girl, but Millicent didn’t appear to be paying any attention to her.

“Come on Parkinson hurry up, just get it over with.” Blaise hadn’t noticed Millicent take Pansy’s hand, and was beginning to feel the tension.

Pansy took a deep breath and squeezed Millicent’s hand as she opened the paper, smiling slightly as she noticed her fingers were no longer shaking. 


	20. anything

“Tracey!” Called an over excited Blaise Zabini in one of his more annoying fits of utterly inexplicable and probably feigned cheerfulness.  
Tracey put down her pen as Blaise pulled out the chair in front of her, then put her foot on it, blocking him. “No Zabini. You tell me what you want, I’ll tell you no, then you can piss off. Don’t sit down. We are not friends, and we never have been.”  
Blaise’s smile slipped from his lips but his eyes remained unchanged. Tracey expected to see them cold, calculating, but they were not. Instead she found them tired, resigned, and a little hopeful. It almost surprised her enough to make her move her foot. Almost. 

“Alright then Tracey, we’ll do it your way.” He said softly, quietly enough that no one around them could hear. “You sit there and I’ll stand here and you can keep me at a distance because I am a giant sparkly douchemobile and you never liked me anyway. That’s fine. But of the people who loved Theo we’re down to just us two now. That’s two people left to remember him, and if you don’t talk to me I’m guessing you won’t talk to anyone about it, and if you do that then I guess we’re both gonna pull a Greengrass and then there’ll be no one left to remember him and I’m not okay with that.”

Tracey opened her mouth as if to speak, but the words died on her lips and Blaise continued, 

“So I’m going to stand here until we’re done, because the others don’t understand. And I guess I just killed the one bit of silver lining you had there cos the only good thing about that prick’s death was that it meant you never have to sit through another hour of wondering why Nott humours me while you quietly work out if it would be legal to murder me, and you never have to sit there and pretend that you don’t know I’m gay while I moon over Theo and pretend like it’s just because we’re friends, and you never have to burn so badly that your skin peels off cos I bugged you two so much you gave up and agreed to do your studying outside, but screw your silver lining cos you’re gonna sit there and you’re gonna talk to me.  
I miss him, and you miss him, and you know what I miss _you_. Parkinson’s good at being an up herself bitch but she never manages to get quite the same educated impatience that you do, and I never get the feeling that she’d actually have the patience to sit there and skin me alive like I do with you, and sometimes she agrees with me just a bit too much so going outside isn’t preceded by a twenty minute argument anymore so I’m always twenty minutes earlier than I meant to be. And maybe those are really shitty things to miss about someone but fucking sue me. Theodore Nott is dead, but I’m not done talking about him, and neither are you.”

Mutely, Tracey moved her feet off the chair, and allowed Blaise to sit down.  
There was a moment of silence, while Tracey tried to look anywhere but at Blaise.

“He didn’t really leave me any curses. He didn’t leave anything.”

 


	21. useful

“Hey Millicent.”   
“Hey Greg.”

Gregory Goyle was not often on his own, it was true. He did not like solitude. His thoughts became oppressive. He felt trapped. Other people were like a skylight to his mind left open just a crack, they added light and fresh air and blew out the accumulating dust and as convoluted as this metaphor is becoming it was still accurate and Gregory never did like metaphors anyway.  
Other people helped.  
Vince especially helped.

Gregory did not like people who talked too much.

When Gregory pictured his mind he saw a loft conversion; a small room with a sloping ceiling, a bed and a bookshelf, a desk and a chair, plainly furnished but enough to be functional. That was how he saw himself as well.  
When he was on his own, it was dark in the room. Dust built up quickly on the furniture and books fell out onto the floor and the dark walls closed ever in and the shadows grew longer and even picturing the image made him feel trapped.  
Other people were the skylight in the sloping ceiling, they brought brightness to the room and the walls stretched out again and he could breathe easy.  
Other people who talked too much though, they were bright and comfortable yes but, if they talked too much they were clutter, they brought boxes of Stuff that didn’t fit anywhere and spilled out onto the floor and across the desk, filled up the _painstakingly_ arranged bookshelf and although they made the room feel bigger they filled up the space until he was almost equally trapped.

Gregory liked Vince.

Vince didn’t talk too much, he brought light and air to the room of Gregory’s mind without bringing clutter, he brought books to add to Gregory’s shelf that he could organise easily and understand without issue, and when he was there it felt like the wireless in the room was playing a gentle tune. It was nice. Vince was nice. To Gregory anyway.

Gregory liked knowing what to do.

He liked to feel useful, to feel like he was needed and had a purpose. He didn’t like not knowing what he was meant to do, it made him feel lost and confused and like he wasn’t really meant to be there. He liked knowing what he was supposed to do and why and he could generally work out the how but it was nice to be told. Draco told him what to do, told him why and when, never tired of explaining (though it was more like ranting), but towards the end he stopped saying why. Vince never stopped saying why. Vince explained things without ranting and he said it clearly and calmly and simply, he said what and why and when and how and Gregory didn’t always like what Vince was telling him to do but he he liked doing things, he liked it when people explained why, he liked being around people, and he liked Vince. So he did them anyway.

Millicent was nice too.  
Millicent was another person who brought clarity to his mind without cluttering it, but Millicent was too withdrawn to be like Vince, too independent to want him doing stuff with her.  
Millicent was nice as a change of scenery. He trusted Millicent. He liked talking to her.  
Millicent never made him feel stupid or worthless, never even tried.  Millicent was like him, but different.  
Gregory liked Millicent. He liked talking to her. He liked not talking to her, and just sitting, and it seemed to him like Millicent liked that too.

So they sat there. Millicent read her book and Gregory read his and it was companionable and quiet in the common room.

“Moon thinks you’re fucking, you know.”   
Millicent looked up from her page. “Who’s fucking?”    
“You and Zabini and Parkinson. She thinks you’re all in a threesome or something.”    
Millicent laughed. “She would. Merlin, wouldn’t be surprised if Moon thought you and Crabbe were fucking.”    
Gregory gave her his soft smile and shook his head. “We’re friends.”    
“I know that Greg, everyone knows that. But I’m pretty sure Moon can’t see two people tolerating each other if they’re not fucking. Makes you wonder what she gets up to with those Hufflepuff friends of hers.”    
They shared a smile, and returned to their books.

Gregory liked Millicent.


	22. raw

 

“Everyone, if I can have your attention please.” Eleanor Pucey, sixth-year Prefect, tipped to be Head Girl even before the Carrows took over, stood on the coffee table in the middle of the room and waited for silence to fall. Usually she was the picture of calm and composure, but there was something tight in her voice now, something angry and a little dangerous.

“My fellow Slytherins,” She addressed them. _“This-_ ” she paused, and suddenly they saw that in her hand she was gripping the ear of a small first-year girl who tried valiantly to suppress her squeak of pain as she was pulled up onto the table beside Pucey, “ _this_ is Lila Bradford.” There was disgust in her voice now, as well as anger, raw and unmistakable. “Say hello to everyone Lila, why don’t you?”

Lila made a noise that could have been words, then squeaked again as Pucey yanked at her ear.

“No no _my darling,_ a little louder than that, I think. There are some people at the back there who didn’t _quite_ hear you.” Not just anger, _fury_ , with no small measure of threat.  
“Hello.” Lila’s voice was still quiet, but evidently enough to satisfy Pucey.  
“Why don’t you tell them why you’re here, huh Lila?” she asked, with cold, dangerous sarcasm. “No? Alright then, I’ll do it. Lila here, well, she’s a popular girl I’m sure. She’s got friends in other houses, maybe even siblings, in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. But today, our _dear_ Lila decided it wasn’t enough to just be _friends_ with a Gryffindor, no! Today, Lila decided she wanted to have a go at being a Gryffindor, didn’t you Lila?”  
Lila whimpered as Pucey’s grip tightened.  
“So what she did was, she tried to disarm a student who was rightly punishing someone who had broken the rules, didn’t you Lila. Well, _didn’t you!?”_ Pucey’s voice broke off as it reached almost screaming point, and Lila nodded, stiff with fear.

Pucey paused, and seemed to regain a little control over herself. “Fortunately for Lila, the most senior person to witness this little _fuck up_ was me, and, generous and caring as I am, I have decided not to report Lila.”  
The girl breathed a sigh of relief.  
“Do you know what would have happened if she’d been caught by one of the Carrows?” Pucey asked the room at large. Silence persisted. “Do you know?” She was up in the young girl’s face now, bending over her and looking down into Lila’s terrified eyes directly, “Do you know what would have happened?” She whispered threateningly.  
“D-detention?” squeaked the terrified child.

Pucey laughed. It was not a nice laugh. 

“Oh darling, it would be a lot worse than detention. You my girl would be screaming in the dungeons for the rest of your days, but that’s nothing really. Do you know what would have happened to the rest of us?”  
Pucey turned to face the house again. “Do you know how many kids are in detention for things they probably didn't do?” She spotted Goyle’s face in the crowd. “Hey Goyle, how many kids do you get in detention who probably didn’t do what they’re accused of?”  
Gregory shifted uncomfortably, folding his arms in a way that he knew displayed his muscles best so that none of them forgot he was still in control, unsure of whether it was a trick question.  
“A few.” He answered, warily.  
“You got a proportion for me? For educational purposes.”  
“Maybe twenty percent. A quarter.”  
“A quarter. Thank you Goyle.” She turned back to the room in general. “You hear that, a _quarter_. A quarter of the people you see chained to the wall and screaming aren’t there because they broke the rules, they’re there because they’re Gryffindors, because they’re Hufflepuffs, because they’re Ravenclaws; in short they’re there because they’re _not Slytherins._ You think standing up to anyone’s gonna help them?” She asked.

The room stayed silent. Nobody even seemed to breathe.

“It’s not. You oppose the order of things- you, _as a Slytherin_ oppose the order of things, those kids are still gonna be screaming, but you’re gonna be screaming with them. And they’re not gonna be there because they’re not Slytherin anymore. No, they’re just gonna be there cos they’re little shits who deserve it and you can bet your arse there’s gonna be Slytherins up there too, Slytherins who are just little shits who deserve it. We’ve escaped so far, we’ve got out easy so far. They think, no, they- our headmaster, our teachers, our Ministry- they **know** we support them, so they know we don’t need to be punished. If they start to think we don’t support them, they know we need to be punished. So they punish us.   
“You know what happens if we decide to be heroes like Lila? All of a sudden we’re in detention, we’re bleeding, we’re crying. You’re chained to a wall. Your little sister gets a crucio. Your best friend gets starved for a week. Your big brother gets a broken rib.”

 She paused for breath, and some of the anger seemed to drain out of her. “We’re not doing this because we’re heartless.” She said quietly. “This isn’t ideology, we are children and this fight is not our fight. We’re not doing this to see the other houses suffer, we’re doing this because it’s the only way to keep each other safe. We can’t protect the others, but we can protect each other and we can protect ourselves, and this is the only way.  
“We cannot be what we are if we are divided. We cannot use our _influence_ if we are doubted. We are nothing if we are not behind the Ministry. Besides, if we’re not with them, who are we with?” She challenged.  
Some of the charismatic fury returned to her voice, passion and anger and years of resentment spilling over and onto her tongue. “Who will be with us? Who would help us if we turned against the Carrows, against the headmaster, against the Ministry of Magic? The Gryffindors?” She scoffed.   


At least she didn’t laugh. 

“We help ourselves, we side with the only ones willing to side with us and we damn well survive this.”

 Pucey shoved Lila down from the table, all focus completely on her as she began again, voice even louder and clearer than before. “So to summarise, if you don’t keep the fuck out of politics we will publicly lynch you and no one will stop us, and I meant that literally. We will string you up from that nice big tree out by the lake and you will hang by the neck until dead for your crimes against every single life in this room. If you burn we all burn with you and we will do whatever it takes to distance ourselves from you. No politics. No heroes. Got it kids? Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks very much to the lovely Mystics Apprentice for beta-reading this chapter for me!


	23. vulnerabilty

It’s a little thing today that sets him off, but then it always is the little things. It was Theo’s birthday last week and he was nearly fine, but today he caught a whiff of his aftershave in the corridors and it almost broke him on the spot.   
Thank fucking Merlin for the Slytherin favouritism this year because he couldn’t face going to lessons after that. And Pansy still didn’t knock and Blaise still hated her for it because that was where she found him when she came to look for him that evening.

 

Blaise wasn’t good with vulnerability.

This is an understatement.

Blaise utterly detested vulnerability, there was nothing he hated more than being weak, or worse, being seen to be being weak.

His mother hadn’t got where she was today without learning a few things along the way and she had passed this knowledge onto Blaise, and the biggest, most important lesson she had taught him, drilled into him most firmly, was to never let them see him weak.

It didn’t matter what his weaknesses were, where his flaws were. Just so long as he remained strong, no one would use them against him. So long as he remained strong, it didn’t matter that he was the mixed-race bastard son of a working class gold-digger/murderess now new-money rich, it didn’t matter that he was lazy and vain and self-conscious and still desperately in love (with a dead boy), just so long as he was strong enough to stay on top.  
If he slipped, if he broke, then he fell, and with shit like that to be talked he was never getting back up again. Not in this world.  
So, he had to be strong, he had to be wary, he had to be invulnerable, or he was screwed.

So when Pansy opened the door and found him crying on the floor against the wall by his bed his every instinct screamed in outrage. He yelled at her, swearing and cursing and grabbing his wand. She dodged the first hex, moved closer into the room and blocked the second he sent at her, but didn’t try to disarm him. Instead she sat down beside him on the floor and ignored the way he recoiled from his touch.

Blaise was tired, he was so tired but still cursing weakly, still swearing at her and trying to get her to leave. So tired of hiding and concealing and dancing around truths and things they all knew, just tired in general, but it wasn’t until she ducked under his arm and leaned her head against his chest, wrapped an arm around his waist and tangled their legs together that he gave up.

And so they sat there, silent and still, as he gradually relaxed. He moved his arm to wrap around her shoulders and let his head rest on hers, and if there was wet mascara stained on his shirt or tears in her hair neither of them said a word.

 

“You really loved him didn’t you.” She said quietly. It wasn’t a question, not an accusation, merely a simple statement, an observation, and Blaise had to fight hard not to freeze.  
He reached around within himself, trying to find the denial and bring it to his lips, but it was hard when her weak soft fragile limbs were wrapped around his, and he just gave up and gave in and quietly replied with a simple, “yeah.”

And maybe she hugged him a little tighter at that and maybe she didn’t but it was enough.  
“It's not how I thought it would be when I was little.” She whispered, and Blaise snorted.   
“No shit, I never thought I’d be gay.” He replied, a smile stretching his lips wider as she laughed.  
There was a moment’s pause before she spoke again.  
“I loved Daphne too you know. Not in the same way, but…”  
 “Everyone loved Daphne. Merlin knows why, I mean, she was a stuck up selfish cow,” He said, and Pansy laughed a little again, “But we loved her.”  
Blaise found himself threatening to cry again and squeezed his eyes shut, he had been weak enough already and he couldn’t afford any more, but then Pansy spoke again in a broken little voice.  
“Fuck being strong.”  He almost laughed, he opened his eyes to look down at her and found that she was crying again too.

And there they sat, silent and still as they bled salty tears, into each other’s clothes until their chests stopped shaking.


	24. sleep

It was five o’clock in the morning and Millicent couldn’t sleep.  
Millicent was not a light sleeper.  
Millicent did not have insomnia.  
Millicent did not have nightmares.  
In her opinion, Millicent slept better than she did everything else combined. 

But she couldn’t sleep.

There was no way the other two girls are asleep. Davis was a light sleeper. Moon rarely slept before sunrise. There was no way they couldn’t hear it. And yet it continued.

Millicent could hear it, even when she shoved her head under her pillow and tried to think of song lyrics in her head. Pansy muttered in her sleep, tossing and turning and thrashing under the covers, speaking and crying out and just plain crying and was plainly having a nightmare. But it wasn’t like anyone dared wake her up. One does not simply wake a crying Slytherin. One does not simply wake Parkinson.

So they listened.

It was five o’clock in the morning and none of the Slytherin seventh year girls could sleep.  
Millicent swore loud and long. She hoped the others were listening.  
Millicent got out of bed.  
Millicent kept swearing as she fumbled for her wand.  
Millicent stopped swearing for long enough to cast a silencing charm in the direction of Parkinson’s bed, and to hear twin sighs on relief from the other two occupants of the room.  
Millicent took up swearing again and didn't stop until she was back in bed and her eyes were heavy.

It happened again the next night.

And the next.


	25. expect

A footstep echoed down the empty corridor.

The gaggle of students froze.   
They were out of bed after hours. They were Gryffindors.  
They swallowed.  
They were going to get detention. They were going to be skinned alive.

The footsteps continued, and the Gryffindors tried to flee but found their legs were frozen in place they couldn’t move they couldn’t escape they couldn’t escape they

“Well look who we have here, a bunch of little bastards all out of bed.”

A melodramatic villain from a muggle film couldn’t have made better use of the shadows than Pansy Parkinson had. She paused just on the edge of the pool of illumination provided by the flickering torch on the wall beside her, half visible and half hidden, nothing but her smile discernible on her face.

“Well aren’t I lucky, here was me thinking patrol duty would be boring. I should really cover for people more often you know.” She stepped out of the shadows, still grinning in a way the torchlight made fiendishly sinister.

The Gryffindors tried not to move, not to make a sound.

“Well I suppose I’d better deal with you.” She stalked off past them down the corridor, then paused when they failed to follow her. “Coming?” She asked, her voice deeply patronising.

Several of the younger students tried desperately to fight the invisible bond placed around their legs and merely overbalanced, falling with a cry. 

Pansy laughed.

“You knew that was going to happen, you know we can’t move!” One of the older, bolder students protested, angry and proud and refusing to cower, refusing to give in to their tormentor.  
“Oh dear,” Pansy remarked with a smirk and a tone that dripped of innocence, “It appears someone has cursed you to the spot. I suppose I’d better fix it.” She undid the curse and the students sighed with relief, several more fell over. She did not wait for them to get up.

“Hurry up you pathetic sacks of thestral shit.”

They followed, and so did her taunting.  
  
“I mean, I know you’re a pathetic waste of space Nichols but, do you really have to take up so _much_ of it? I might have to ban you from the Great Hall for a couple of days, maybe you could actually fit through hallways then.”  
  
“Don’t even think of trying to sneak off you worthless bloodscum.”  
  
“Saw your name in the paper again Renolds, _shame_ about your brother. I wonder how many people wish you’d died instead of him, he might actually have done something with his life you know.”  
  
“Hurry the fuck up or I’ll hex you into a pile of entrails and don’t you fucking test me.”  
  
“Do try and stay out of the torchlight Dunbar, it’s better for all of us when we can’t see your face.”

  
She verbally abused them all the way back to their common room, where she left them with a few choice insults and a backwards jinx, quietly stewing and so inwardly furious that they forgot they had been expecting detention.


	26. exasperation, amusement / (ghosts)

“You’re up early.” Commented Pansy, sliding onto the seat opposite Crabbe and Goyle. “Surprised you even get out of bed at this time.”  
She had a point. It was a Saturday, and it was half past six in the morning. She had no idea what _she_ was doing out of bed (except she had woken up in a cold sweat and couldn’t get back to sleep), never mind the two of them.  
  
“We’re always up this early.” Goyle’s voice was always softer than you thought it would be.  
Crabbe caught Pansy’s sceptical look of utter disbelief and explained, “There’s detentions in about half an hour that we gotta oversee. We go back to bed after that.” He grinned, and took a big bite of his sausage bap.   
“If they’re not for another half hour what are you doing out of bed now?”   
He swallowed his mouthful and grinned again. “What, and miss breakfast?”  
Pansy couldn’t help it, she found herself smiling, shook her head in amusement and reached for the toast. Goyle’s smile splayed soft around his lips.

 

Blaise yawned widely and exaggeratedly as he collapsed on the bench next to Pansy, propping his face up with his hand, elbow on the table, and began to mumble demands about coffee.  
Pansy laughed, and the sound was not entirely unkind, as she poured him a steaming mug of strong black coffee. He groaned his thanks and emptied the nearest sugar bowl into it before taking a large gulp.  
He let out a loud yelp and a string of curses, much to everyone else’s amusement, and practically spat it back out, swallowing with difficulty.  
“Oh come on Zabini, swallow it baby.” Taunted Pansy, earning herself a rough but (relatively) playful shove that only made her laugh again.  
“Fucking fuck, Merlin’s dick that’s the worse thing I’ve ever put in my mouth and you can shut the fuck up Parkinson.”  
Pansy smirked, swallowing the lewd comment on the tip of her tongue.  
“Fuck that was disgusting and I can’t feel my tongue. Actually that’s a lie I can feel my tongue and it’s screaming.” He banged his head down on the table and left it there, groaning. “Can’t a guy get a decent coffee on the morning?” He whined.  
“Well he probably could Zabini, if he poured his own coffee, added milk, put a reasonable amount of sugar in it, and waited for it to not scorch his mouth. But alas you did none of those things so no, you don’t get a decent coffee.” Her scolding was amused, and she looked on in exasperation, amusement and (though she would no doubt deny it) affection as he groaned his way upright to fix his damn coffee.  

It turned out fixing it meant adding cold water.

Pansy rolled her eyes and turned back to her toast.  “Why are you such a zombie this morning Blaise? Hell, why are you even down here so early?” She asked, torn between exasperation and amusement.  
Before Blaise could answer, Crabbe began to snigger. “He’s not been sleeping so good, have you Zabini.”

Pansy raised an eyebrow, curiosity piqued, and Crabbe was only too pleased to elaborate.  
“Then again we haven’t either, he’s been having nightmares every night this week. Impossible to get to sleep while he’s-”  
“Yeah yeah shut up Vinnie.” Blaise tried for casual and dismissive, the tone of the lightly teased and only mildly irritated, but missed. He sounded sharper than he intended, defensive. 

“What are you looking at Parkinson?” Blaise’s voice remained harsh.  
Pansy jerked suddenly, as though awoken from a daydream, and apologised distractedly. She had been staring.  

Blaise called her Parkinson for the whole of the rest of the day, but it didn’t matter because Pansy wasn’t the only one whose dreams haunted them like ghosts.


	27. nothing she could do

Pansy leaned back into the plush sofa with a satisfied smirk. A much as some things sucked and as shitty as the world in general was, Pansy remained content in her ability to take comfort in the little things, the small luxuries she indulged in.  
The way the soft velvet of the sofa felt against her bare arm as she sank into the plush cushions, the delicious aroma of fresh coffee, her favourite beans sent from home as a special surprise with the letter from her parents, the wonderful peace and solitude of the for once empty common room in the middle of the day, the silence sleeping into her bones as she allowed her lips to slip into a lazy smile. She reclined back into the sofa, shutting her eyes and letting herself enjoy the indulgent moment, before-

“Parkinson!”  
Pansy heard the sarcasm biting through the affected delight easily and let her head drop back behind her with a groan as Blaise threw himself down upon the sofa beside her.  
“What are you doing here Zabini?” She asked, affecting disgust.  
She could practically hear him grinning. She opened her eyes to check and, yep, there it was, the trademarked Zabini expression that was half smirk, half grin, and all sharp teeth.  Pansy groaned inwardly. Blaise smiled louder and reclined into her, resting his back against her side and leaning his head back against her shoulder, legs thrown over the end of the sofa.

“Well that was terribly rude of you Parkinson.” He scolded, voice rich with amusement.   
“Your existence is terribly rude of you Zabini.” She replied, tartly exasperated.

His grin became more of a smirk and he shuffled around a little to get more comfortable.

“It’s okay Parkinson darling you don’t have to pretend you didn’t miss me.”  
 “Pfft, miss you? If I ever feel a brain tumour coming on I’ll tell you.”  
Zabini laughed and reached an arm around to jab a sharp finger into the pressure point at her side, causing her to yelp and recoil into him to get away.  He laughed again, not entirely (un)kindly. “See Parkinson? Just can’t get close enough to me.”  
Now it was Pansy’s turn to laugh. "Why do we even keep you around Zabini?"  
"Because you can't live without me." he smirked, reclining more thoroughly against her.  
"Pfft, since when was that true."

Neither of them could be entirely sure how sarcastic she was being.

Because it was true. The arrogant obnoxious smarmy prick was now one of the corner stones of her life and of her sanity and there was nothing she could do about it.

She shifted slightly, so that her shoulder leaned back against him too.


	28. right, yeah, no way

“Hey Millie…”  
“I’m reading.” Replied Millicent, not looking up from her book.  
Pansy shifted her legs around on Millicent’s lap in irritation. She was bored and she wanted attention, but experience had showed her that if Millicent didn’t want to talk then Millicent was not going to talk, and all that would happen if she protested further would be that Millicent would throw Pansy’s legs out the way and leave and Pansy was really rather comfortable like this. She changed tactic.  
“Blaise?” She tried, leaning her head back onto the boy’s shoulder, as she reclined against him.  
“Mmm sleeping.” He muttered, refusing to open his eyes.  
“Oh for fucksacks Zabini-”  
“Not now Pansy I’m _tired_.” He whined, and something in his voice made Pansy leave it. She understood too well the difficulty of falling asleep on one’s own at night.  
She sighed melodramatically, and resigned herself to her age old pastime of evesdropping.

A gaggle of second years in the corner were discussing the likely outcome of the quidditch leagues this year. Not interesting.  
Tracy Davis was muttering something, probably some new and potentially either terrifying or mind-numbingly dull incantation, at one of the mostly-unoccupied work tables. Boring.  
Some sixth years by the fire were arguing about the Weird Sisters’ new album. Better, but still dull.  
Two forth years in the arm chairs just behind the big sofa Pansy and her friends were draped across were discussing… the girl’s voice drifted over the back of the sofa and Pansy tuned in her ears to listen.

“… thinking of trying some kind of infiltration thing so we can crack the DA.” She explained, and Pansy recognised her voice as belonging to Victoria Parks, one of the Students Who ‘Helped Out’ in Detentions (and other aspects of the school…).

“We’ve been stalking the members for months now and we _still_ don’t know where they’re meeting, or even who’s in it, we’ve only got a couple of repeat offenders and even they’re only guesses mostly.”  
There was a slight pause, a barely noticeable delay before the boy replied, “That, that sounds cool, hope it works out for you.”  
“Yeah, they always manage to get away when we try and follow them, but infiltration? That'll get us right where we wanna be. We're looking for volunteers from other houses, Hufflepuffs preferably. There’s no way they’d let any of us join, right?”  
“Right, yeah, no way. Hufflepuffs would be the ideal,” Agreed the boy, “Since it’s not like you’re not gonna get any Gryffs to help you, and Hufflepuffs are the next least suspicious, but do you reckon you can actually get any to go for it though? I mean loyal is in the description, Vicky.”  
“Way ahead of you man, we’ve already got one.” She replied with a grin. “What do you think about Whitby? Kevin Whitby, third year, blonde hair in that stupid cut that sort of flops across his face, _way_ too passionate about breeding snails.”  
“I know who Whitby is.”  
“Just checking.”  
“Yeah, he should work.” The boy agreed.  
This time the girl paused, and with a meaningful look at the boy she nodded.  
“Good,” She said slowly, “Thought you might want to know.”  
They stared at each other for a few brief moments more, before the girl’s smile brightened and she changed the topic.

 


	29. break / okay

Blaise was the last one down in the common room. 

It wasn’t unusual, he often was these days. Ever since Theo…

His dreams were, not restful. Sleep, once the wondrous refuge of the eternally lazy Blaise, had become a refuge for his nightmares instead, for bleeding boys and cold corpses, for too-dark hair and too-pale skin and grey eyes that once shone with intelligence and hidden amusement, but no longer, for Tracey Davis and her wet red robes, and golden blonde hair in a pool of blood and whatever other _horrors_ his brain had concocted since the last time he let it have free reign.  
The worst was when he woke screaming and found that his silencing charm had worn off and could only hope that Crabbe and Goyle were still asleep. 

Footsteps.

Blaise sat up straighter, adopting a more dignified position and trying to look like he wasn’t just there because he was too scared to go to sleep.

Pansy.

Blaise relaxed a little.

Crying Pansy.

Blaise tensed a little. He never knew what to do when people cried. How was he supposed to comfort them when he couldn’t even comfort himself?

Pansy ignored his apparent discomfort and curled up next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder and rubbing her mascara tracks into his shirt.

Ah, this he knew how to deal with. They had been here before. Blaise relaxed back into the sofa, letting her lean on him and waiting for her to speak first.

“I haven’t heard from Draco in weeks Blaise, maybe it’s been months already I don’t, I don’t know. I’m scared Blaise.” She confessed, voice so quiet he wasn’t sure that he was meant to hear it.  
He wrapped an arm around her, only a little awkwardly, and pulled her close. He knew what she was going through. He knew what she felt. He only hoped she never had to feel what he had felt. 

She seemed content to just sit there with him for a while, definitely-not-crying, as the fire flickered down to its embers in front of them and Blaise tried not to add Draco to the dead behind his eyelids. 

“How much does it hurt Blaise?” Pansy broke the precious silence with a whisper that both of them wished she could have kept to herself. “It’s been so long since we heard from Draco and, and I know he hasn’t been in the paper yet but, but he could be, m-maybe he was and we just missed him or- I, I’m not ready Blaise and I don’t know if I can, if I could, if…”

Blaise sucked in a deep breath. “You couldn’t. It would break you.”  
Pansy looked up at him suddenly, her own tears forgotten, wide innocent eyes that he tried so hard to ignore, until finally he caved, turning to look her in the eye.  
“I’m here Blaise. I know you didn’t have time to, time to mourn Theo, not with Daphne… like she was, and then she died too and aside from getting pissed as fuck that one night we never did anything and maybe it’s a little late but it’s not, it’s not _too_ late.”  
Blaise just looked at her blankly.  
“Tell me about him.”  
“W-what?”  
“Theodore Nott. Tell me about him. What was he like? What was it like being his friend?”

For the first time in months, Blaise let himself think back to the years he’d spent with Theodore, the days nagging him in the library, the days laughing in the sunshine, the days when Theo didn’t speak to anyone but he spoke to Blaise and the days Theo cursed anyone who so much as looked at him but let Blaise as close as he liked and the nights when he took Theo out on the town over the summer and they both got uproariously drunk and that one weekend over easter and that one afternoon last Christmas and…

“Fuck.” His voice was broken, throat choked, and his eyes stung with sudden tears. “I can’t, Pansy I can’t…”

Pansy shushed him quietly, murmuring reassuring nonsense as she rubbed his arm soothingly, pulling him in closer to offer what comfort she could.  
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’ll be okay. You will. Not yet, but you will. When you’re ready you’ll talk about him and you’ll be okay.”

And it wasn’t okay. So Blaise told her, told her about how it _hurt_ being friends with Theodore Nott, with his jinxes that would sting for weeks and his careful insults that would hurt for longer, his temper and his silence and his aversion to being outside. And he told her about how it was worth it, how _Theo_ was worth it, his rare smile and rarer laugh a tonic to a darkening world, about how his aloof demeanour and icy facade were hiding the protectiveness that meant that after the first incident in first year no one _ever_ messed with Blaise and that no matter how much of a mess Blaise was or how much of a mess he made, Theo would always be there to clean up, grumbling all the way. 

He wasn’t sure how long he kept talking, whether or not he told Pansy about all the golden days he had had with his best friend (laughter dripping down his face as he used the words, remembering the look of horror on Theo’s face whenever he said it) or all of Theo’s little tics and his pet peeves and the easiest way to distract him and an entire encyclopaedia of knowledge about Theodore that he had so carefully curated and was now forever useless, but it didn’t really matter in the end.  
What mattered was that eventually he ran out of words (or the ability to speak them) and Pansy shifted round into his lap, one arm squeezed tight around him and the other running fingers gently through his hair as she pulled his face into the crook her her neck, holding him close to her. What matters is that for the first time in years Blaise let his guard drop completely, let his mask go, let himself sob unrestrainedly into Pansy’s neck and take comfort from her soothing motions and wrap his arms tight around her, let her truly be his friend.

They stayed like that for quite some time, and when he was done she slid back into place beside him, her head resting on his shoulder and his arm still around her.  
“I hate you for this Pansy. I hate you for doing this.” He said quietly, calmly.  
He felt her nod against his chest. “I know Blaise. But it’s okay. You’re everything I’ve got right now. I hate you too.”

The fire burned down low and tears still rolled down their rose-blotched cheeks and they were warm in the darkness, wrapped up together in the still, quiet night, open and vulnerable but finally unhaunted, if only for a little while.

 

Upstairs, a door banged shut. The sound of footsteps on the staircase broke the fragile peace and they froze, hearts beating wildly and hands grasping for wands that weren’t there. Being caught like they were was utterly unthinkable but it was far too late to run and it was far too late to hide and then

“What the fuck are you two doing down here at three in the fucking morning?”  
Pansy let out a sigh of relief as Millicent stepped out into the room. 

It was too dark to see them clearly from the doorway, but a little further into the room their faces were easy to see. Millicent took one look at them, scared and guilty as they stared at her, all tearstained eyes and intertwined limbs, and walked over towards them without a word. The continued to stare silently, not sure what to say, until she sat down beside Pansy and lent her own arm to comfort them.

“It’ll be okay.” She said softly, running her fingers through Blaise’s hair as Pansy wrapped her arm tight around Millicent’s waist. “This will all be over soon, and whatever happens, we’ll be okay.”  
It didn’t sound like she was crying.


	30. Oh

“Hey Pansy?”  
“Yeah Blaise?”  
“What are you doing?”

Pansy’s quill kept moving over the parchment in her lap, despite the way Blaise was reclining against her shoulder. “Really Blaise? I’ve been doing this every week since the beginning of term and only now do you notice? You are so unobservant it’s unbelievable, what’s even wrong with you?”  
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m not that unobservant!” Blaise almost sat up indignantly, but decided he really couldn’t be bothered.  
“Yes you are. It took you over an hour to notice that time Tracey turned your shirt hot pink.”  
“What makes you think I didn’t notice? I happen to like hot pink. It suits me.”  
“You hate hot pink Blaise.”  
“No I don’t, that’s just what I want people to think. It’s in keeping with my masculine persona.”  
“Masculine?” Asked Pansy, amused, and Blaise didn’t need to see her face to know that her eyebrow was raised.”  
“Well, my not-gay persona then.”  
“Oh sweetheart I’m not even sure you manage that.”  
“Screw you I’m great at pretending to be straight, you’ll see, I’m gonna do it my entire life from now own.”

The playful tone of their conversation died somewhat, the mood shifting suddenly to sombre and uncomfortable. They both knew why there wouldn’t be any other boys.

After a moment of silence, Blaise attempted to pick the mood up again. “Nice redirection by the way, what are you doing there Pansy?”  
“She’s writing to Draco. Obviously.” Millicent flopped down on Pansy’s other side, and they tried to ignore how much she made them bounce on the sofa, and Millicent tried to hide her smile and pretend that she hadn’t done it on purpose.

“She told you?” Blaise did sit up now, turning around to look in indignant horror at Millicent.  
Millicent rolled her eyes. “Of course not."  
“Then how did you-?”  
“It’s obvious you idiot. Who the fuck else would she be writing to? It’s not like she’s doing homework.”   
The three of them snickered slightly. They took their amusement where they could these days, and they still enjoyed the fact that it had now been months since they had been assigned pretty much any homework at all.

“Wait,” Blaise continued, “You’ve been writing to Draco and not told us about it?” He asked Pansy.  
“Well what’s the point?” She replied, a little curtly.  
“What’s the? Maybe I’d like to know if my friend’s _not dead_?” He said incredulously, with impatient disbelief.  
There was a pause. “Same. Just because I’m writing to him it doesn’t mean he writes back.”  
Another pause. “Oh.”


End file.
